The Mandrake Pact
by Zhangers
Summary: "The prospective witch or wizard should - this can't be right," read Remus. "Is that all?" asked Sirius. "A whole month, though," lamented Peter. "Could be worse," shrugged James. As it turned out, he was quite wrong. Towards the end of fourth year, the Marauders take their first steps towards becoming animagi. The instructions are deceptively simple.


Chapter 1 - More than one way to fleece a kneazle

Towards the end of first year, James had managed to learn a piece of rather interesting information about Professor McGonagall. It was this: McGonagall takes tea with Dumbledore on Saturday afternoons. He knew this because he spent quite an indecent amount of time following her around in his cloak as an ickle firstie, trying deperately to solve the problem of the surly head of house, what precisely she had up her backside, and what, if anything, might be done about it. Sirius thought he was obsessed, and found the whole thing pretty funny if not a little sick, but James had doggedly followed her around on the sly for months before he got bored of the whole thing. It had been a waste of time, mostly.

Except, McGonagall took tea with Dumbledore on Saturdays.

And afterwards, she would smile to herself as she walked down the corridor. On one occasion, she even hummed a merry highland tune, after checking that the coast was quiet clear.

This was valuable information. And because he knew it, James did not dismiss Remus's suggestion straight away.

"It's worth a try," he said, tossing the injured snitch back through the air in a high loop. "You never know. She might say yes, since it's _you_. But you have to ask the right way, at the right time."

"You could say you need it for exams," added Peter. "She's bound to say yes, if it's for exams."

Peter's conversation had been very exam-heavy every since the timetable had come out.

Sirius, however, remained unconvinced.

"It's a waste of time, if you ask me. And worse - it might put her onto us. You're better off getting it with the cloak, James."

"There are hundreds of books in there, it could take hours to find the right one," explained Remus.

"Summoning spell," shrugged Sirius.

"But that wouldn't work," said Remus, with a slight frown. "At least, I don't think it would. I think you would have to know the exact book title. You couldn't just point at a shelf and ask for "all the books on how to become an -" He dropped his voice to a whisper - " _animagus_ , thank you very much. At least, I don't think you could. Could you?"

He trailed off thoughtfully, his eyes drifting towards the clouds as if they held some kind of answer.

"Makes no difference, since I couldn't take all the books with me anyway," said James. "It would look too suspicious."

"They wouldn't see you, though," said Peter, puzzled.

"I mean the empty shelves. Bit of a giveaway. Pince is bound to notice a dozen books gone missing from the restricted section. I reckon she counts them every morning before breakfast. And there'll be all sorts of awkward questions if they notice what we've checked out. That's the last thing we want. Moony's got a point, you know."

"My way, I can spend all the time we need to find something that's actually any good," nodded Remus.

He looked quite relieved that James had come out on his side. Sneaking around under the cloak had never really been Remus's thing. He much preferred going about things the legitimate way, if at all possible. And even when it wasn't.

"And none of you will be putting yourselves at risk."

He didn't say "just for my sake", but James heard it nonetheless. He wanted to say that he, Sirius and even Peter would risk more than detentions for Remus, but there were only so many times that you could say a thing before it got boring as hell.

"If you _are_ going to do it," he said, instead. "Go on a Saturday, around half-four. You'll find McGonagall in the corridor near Dumbledore's office. You'll know it's her, she'll be the one step0-dancing."

He did not bother to explain.

The following Saturday, Remus dutifully went, with his speech rehearsed to a casual T, and the pre-written note in his hand. Remus had even made a little line with neat little 'x' where McGonagall was supposed to sign. He went alone because they all knew better than to jeopardise their chances.

"Excuse me, Professor…I was just wondering if… Actually, I have a bit of a favour to ask…"

He muttered as he went, and was distracted that he almost ran straight into some fifth year girls at the portrait hole.

"Doesn't bode well," remarked Sirius. He was stretched out on the chaise in front of the fire, adding to the Black Book. From where James was sitting, it looked like more arithmancy, no doubt for the map.

James shrugged.

"You never know," he said. "She likes him more than any of us. Almost as much as she likes Evans. And she's always in a good mood about now."

"She's still McGonagall," replied Sirius, not looking up from his hideously complicated scribbles.

James had to agree to that. He knew that McGongall took tea with Dumbledore on Saturdays. But he also knew that Mcgonagall was, indeed, Mcgonagall. Indisputable fact, that was. All the tea in the world could not change it.

It was a fool's hope, really, and he knew from the look on Moony's face when he came back through the portrait hole that it had not gone their way.

Sirius steered a second year out of an armchair close to the fire, and Remus slumped into it wordlessly.

"Well? Did you do it?" asked Peter rather tremulously.

"What does it look like?" retorted Remus. He tossed the balled-up, utterly useless note into the fireplace where the flames licked it up merrily.

"Bad luck," said James. He gave Remus's shoulder a squeeze.

"I tried everything," said Remus in an exasperated tone. "I told her it was for exam preparation, that I only wanted this particularly obscure and ancient book on animal transfigurations that I was sure would solve my problem with the writing desk assignment – you'll remember mine still had crow's feet at the end –"

"Oh, everyone remembers that, Remus," drawled Sirius. "Travesty, wasn't it, James?"

"Just dreadful, I could barely look at it," replied James, out of habit.

" - but she wasn't having it," continued Remus. "She said that there was absolutely no reason why a fourth year student would need access to the restricted section and that – "

Here Remus hesitated, and his cheeks grew a little pink.

" – that she was sure you two had put me up to it. For one of your, er, 'hare-brained schemes'. And that I really oughtn't let you lead me astray."

"Little does she know that the shoe is very much on the other foot this time," said James, with a smile.

"Did you tell her that Slughorn lets Snivellus use the restricted section?" said Sirius.

"I did try," continued Remus, looking rather pained. "But she said that Professor Slughorn's students are his own, and that what Severus Snape is and is not allowed to do is none of our business."

Sirius swore quiet loudly, much to the disgust of a nearby group of girls. Lily Evans was amongst them, and she crossed her arms at them. James made sure to smile brightly and wave back. This made her tut and exchange a scandalized look with Mary MacDonald.

"So that's it then?" asked Peter. James could tell that he was trying – and failing – to avoid sounding relieved.

"No, of course not," said Sirius.

His face was still puckered with distaste, a rather standard response towards mentions of Snivellus in his vicinity, but a conspiratorial glint had entered his eyes.

Evans was still watching them like a hawk, no doubt committing all of this to memory so that she could chat it cosily over with Snape in the following day's double potions.

"Well, we did try to play nice…" said Sirius, quietly.

"There's more than one way to fleece a kneazle," agreed James, who knew what the glint meant, and rather liked it.

Wicked grins spread over their faces, while Peter looked nervously between them and Moony sighed.

"You don't have to, you know – "started Remus.

"Yes, we do," insisted James.

"We want to," said Sirius.

Because the nature of the task was rather delicate, and they were all rather wiser than they had been in the naïve, heady days of their youth, they took their time to think through all the moving parts.

Three nights later, James slipped invisibly through the portrait hole with the first four books tucked safely under his arm.

 _Author's note:_ Hope you enjoyed that. As all hardcore fans know by now, it has been officially revealed that part of the process of becoming an animagus involves...well, we'll see next chapter.

Please leave a comment if you enjoyed this, or even if you didn't.

-Z


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